


One of these birds is not my bird

by updownandsideways



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Archivist!Sasha, F/M, M/M, a truly horrifying amount of tea, i'm giving them a happy ending anyway i can do what i want, mortifying ordeal of being known etc, not!jon, the archival assistants love each so other very much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:00:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23955760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/updownandsideways/pseuds/updownandsideways
Summary: Sasha James is the head archivist of the Magnus Institute, and something strange is going on with Jon.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Sasha James & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims, Sasha James/Tim Stoker
Comments: 77
Kudos: 644





	1. Chapter 1

  
  


There is something off about Jon. 

If someone asked him what  _ off  _ meant, Martin isn’t sure if he’d be able to answer them. Everything is off at the institute. The air never feels quite clear enough to breathe in. Sometimes it feels like the walls lean closer to you as you walk the halls. The lights flicker, the dust never settles, and every time Martin steps through the front door his skin starts to itch. The feeling reminds him of sitting on a bus, scrolling through his phone, while some stranger next to him keeps stealing glances at the texts Martin is sending. 

The institute isn’t a friendly place, and no one who works there could ever be normal. No wonder Jon isn’t. In fact, not being normal is completely natural, given the situation they’re all in. 

Still, Martin can’t quite shake the feeling that something isn’t as it should be. It’s like coming home after a long day and finding that subtle details in his apartment have been changed. As if someone has rearranged the mugs in his cupboard or switched out his old tea for some new flavor while he was away. Insignificant changes, sure, but no less unsettling. No less wrong in their nature. 

Wait, that can’t be right.    
  
What a horrible thing to think. 

Martin looks across the office, to where Jon is sorting through another old box filled to the brink with statements. As Martin watches, Jon carefully puts down the papers he’s been holding and meets Martin’s eye. He smiles the shy half-smile it’s taken Martin months of working together to get used to. 

Even after Prentiss, after the worm-attacks, after Sasha started spending more and more time travelling and doing ‘independent research’, as Tim growing increasingly more restless in her absence, even after all of it, Jon is the only one of them who’s remained steady. He never seems to waver. He hardly seems taken aback by everything that has happened (not even the worms of it all). He almost manages to seem cheery. And Martin admires him for that. Always has. 

What was he thinking about again?

How Jon’s hair almost looks golden in the sunlight. How his nose scrunches up when he concentrates particularly hard on something, or when he laughs. How Martin’s always the one to break their eye contact first, something dark and sweet pooling in his stomach, because he isn’t sure how to deal with it. If there’s even anything to deal with at all. 

*** 

Tim is always the only one who’s able to keep tabs on Sasha. Martin isn’t hurt by it, even though a part of him almost feels like he should be. Tim and Sasha have always been close, in a hundred different ways Martin has never been with either of them. One time, when they were having drinks after work at a bar neither of them liked and Sasha had left hours ago, Tim told Martin that he was sure he’d been in love with Sasha for at least a month after they first met. 

‘And now?’ Martin had asked him. He wasn’t used to seeing Tim this open. No jokes, no snide comments. Martin almost felt like writing him a poem.

‘I’m not sure anymore,’ Tim had said, and then, after a moment's hesitation, glared at him. ‘And don’t you dare write a poem about this.’ And that was the last they spoke of it. 

‘She says she’ll be back by Friday,’ Tim tells them on Wednesday. They’re having lunch together at a cafe close to the institute. Martin, Jon and him. 

‘How did she sound?’ Martin asks.

‘Tired,’ Tim says. He pauses, stirring his coffee in small, stilted motions. ‘Scared.’

On instinct, Martin touches his chin, the old scarring he knows he’ll find there. He’s memorized each and every location of them by now. Every new bump on his face, on his legs and arms. The constellation of healed wounds, mirrored on Tim. At least Martin has gotten used to touching them by now. In the first few weeks after everything, he’d sometimes wake up in the middle of the night in a panic, sure that he could still feel the worms crawling somewhere inside him. Willing their way deeper and deeper, toward the roots. Martin isn’t even sure what “the roots” are supposed to be, in his nightmares. His heart, maybe. His soul, if he has one. 

After the attack, everything changed. Everything felt realer, somehow. The terror was much more vivid when it wasn’t Martin’s alone. When others had seen it, felt it, just like he had. 

And two days after Prentiss, Sasha came knocking on his door. It had been late, almost eleven at night. Martin had tried to keep busy writing, but ended up spending most of his time trying to find new ways to wrap himself up, in blankets and sweaters and scarves, anything to cover up his skin, anything to not have to look at it anymore. 

He’d let Sasha in, deciding not to comment on the dark circles underneath her eyes or the way she kept glancing around her, as if she thought someone might be following her, close behind. It was a reasonable fear, Martin decided. Before he started making them tea, he made sure the curtains in the kitchen were drawn. 

‘Thank you, Martin,’ Sasha had said. She held the mug Martin handed her so carefully, like she thought she might break it. ‘How are you holding up?’ 

‘Just fine,’ Martin said. He was glad Sasha didn’t comment on the fact that he was currently wearing gloves inside. ‘Peachy.’ 

‘I’m sorry this happened to you.’ 

‘Well, it wasn’t your fault.’ 

Sasha made a grimace in the general direction of her mug. ‘I should have realized,’ she said, her voice tight and biting. ‘Gertrude tried to warn me. I should have known.’ 

Martin closed his eyes for a moment. Gertrude’s body. Sasha, in danger. All of them in danger, probably. ‘Should have known what?’

Sasha’s eyes met his, suddenly, and for a moment Martin almost felt locked in place. Trapped. ‘I care about you, Martin. You know that, right?’ 

‘I - Yes. Of course. Yeah. You too.’ 

‘I want you to be safe. You, and Tim, and Jon. I got you into this mess, and I need to make sure I get you out of it.’ 

‘You didn’t get us into anything.’ 

Sasha laughed then, a quick bark of a laugh that Martin was used to from her, but it sounded hurt now, oddly bruised in the silence of the kitchen. ‘I’ll get you out regardless.’ She paused, took a sip of tea. ‘In order for you to be safe, I need to be careful about what I share. And I need you to be okay with that.’ 

Martin had protested. He told her he wanted to help. He told her that going through something horrible alone was worse. He thought of his mum. He thought of his dad. God, it was so much worse. 

‘You and Tim are surprisingly similar, sometimes,’ she said. She sounded fond as she did, which was the only reason Martin didn’t start arguing again. ‘I don’t need help. Not right now. What I need, is time. Time to figure out exactly what we’re dealing with.’

‘And you just have to do that alone, do you?’ Martin asked. He didn’t want to be angry. He wanted to help. He wanted to be able to make things right, for once. To have some power over his own life. 

‘As soon as I know more,’ Sasha continued, her voice hushed. ‘As soon as I know more, as soon as I can make sure you’ll be alright, I’ll tell you. I promise. I know you deserve that.’

‘ _ Know more about what? _ ’ Martin asked. He’d been shaking. Wrapped up in enough clothes to survive a blizzard, he’d been shaking. 

‘I’ll tell you as soon as it’s safe,’ Sasha said again. She’d drained the last of her tea and headed for the door. Just as Martin was sure she would storm out, she came back to hug him instead. With Martin’s arms wrapped around her and his nose practically buried in her hair, she whispered: ‘Don’t trust Elias. Don’t trust anything he tells you. Please.’ 

And then she was gone. 

None of them had seen her for more than a few days at a time, after that. She’d go on weeklong trips to God knows where, and each time she returned she’d look a bit more haggard. It hurt, watching her struggle. It hurt knowing that Martin could help, if he only knew how. He knew it hurt Tim as well. Knew it by the way he looked ready for a screaming match whenever Sasha entered the building. 

‘You should have never taken this job,’ Tim kept telling her. ‘If not me, who?’ was Sasha's usual response. 

Jon has never tried to pick a fight with her. Out of all of them, he seems to be the only one who truly understands. 

And now Sasha has been gone for almost three weeks, and she’s sounding scared over the phone. 

‘Did she say  _ anything  _ about what she’s been up to?’ Martin presses. He realizes that his fingers are digging into the tabletop, and quickly attempts to relax them. 

Tim lets out a huff of laughter. ‘Not a word. Of course not.’ 

‘I’m sure she’s fine,’ Jon says, carefully. He places a hand on Tim’s shoulder. ‘At least she’s calling. She wouldn’t call just to check in if she wasn’t alright.’

Tim just sends him a wry smile. ‘The eternal optimist.’ Then Tim shakes his head, as if to clear it. ‘You know what, I’m sure you’re right. She’s probably beating up worm queens all over the place. We all know Sasha, she eats terror for breakfast.’ 

Jon laughs. ‘The hero we deserve. Sasha James:  _ She eats terror for breakfast _ . I’d watch that movie.’ 

Martin is relieved to hear that laugh. If Jon’s laughing, that must mean - 

Well, it wouldn’t really mean anything. Jon laughs all the time. Jon laughs at commercial jingles and dad jokes. Jon laughs at Tim nearly every day. Martin blinks a few times, tries to settle himself again. 

  
Jon has a very beautiful laugh. 

***

  
  


Ever since Sasha started travelling, Martin has taken to reading the statement. It’s one of the numerous ways he’s attempting to trick himself into thinking they still have an actual job to do. 

Martin hates reading the statements. It’s unsettling, and weird, and deeply sad more often than not. He mourns for them, after reading. The people who have been taken away. The people who have been lost. It makes him feel itchy and worn down for hours after. Cold. All the tea in the world couldn’t make that feeling go away. 

But he still reads them, because that’s what Sasha would do if she were here. 

Tim doesn’t talk much about what he does at the office all day, but Martin is fairly sure he’s just reading through as many of the old statements as possible, trying to uncover some kind of truth. Martin has seen him head towards Elias’ office multiple times, despite Sasha’s warnings. 

It’s no use, really. Elias hasn’t been at the office much lately, either. Whenever Martin sees him, there’s a nasty drag to his mouth. He’s a far cry from the polished, reserved man Martin is used to seeing. Right now he looks about as frazzled as his employees. 

Jon is the only one who actually organizes. Or rather, he tries to organize. He sorts through boxes and arranges them in piles according to subject. Sometimes he complains loudly about Gertrude and her filing abilities. Other times he just rests his head in his hands and proclaims that he’s  _ done, it’s over, I finally give up _ . 

That’s usually Martin’s cue to go make him some tea. Today is one of those days. 

‘It’s impossible,’ Jon is saying. His skin is so pale that when he blushes, he turns almost violently red and blotchy. Right now he’s sitting next to a box he’s apparently hauled halfway across an aisle of shelves, fanning his face. ‘I’ve been working on this like a  _ maniac  _ for  _ months  _ and it looks exactly the same.’

‘It’s a large archive,’ Martin says, almost laughing. ‘What did you think was going to happen?’

Jon looks up, eyes impossibly blue. They make Martin think of ice, make him think of steel. ‘I thought I’d work really hard for a little while, and have this place looking like an IKEA in no time.’ 

‘Nothing, no matter how persistent, could ever make this look like an IKEA,’ Martin says. He hands Jon his tea, careful not to spill any. 

Jon takes it. He smiles his little half-smile at Martin before he takes a sip. ‘Thank you, Martin,’ he says, voice low. ‘It’s perfect.’ 

Martin feels his face heat. Jon always manages to take him aback. Martin knows he should be over it by now, knows he should move on, knows he should have some dignity, for Christ’s sake. But it’s hard. Not smiling back at Jon is even harder. 

Hours later, when Martin comes back to check if Jon needs any help, he’s already left for the day. 

  
The cup of tea stands perched atop a shelf, where Jon must have left it. Cold, and still full. 

***

‘Have you noticed anything off about Jon?’ Martin asks Tim on Friday morning. They’re all on edge, waiting for Sasha to call with news that she’s landed in England. The last place she was was Shanghai. She told Tim she was bringing back presents for everyone, and none of them are sure if she’s joking or not. 

‘Have I what?’ Tim has just barely made it into the office, his monstrosity of a green puffer jacket still on, coffee in hand. Jon hasn’t arrived yet, and that’s the only reason Martin even dares ask. Just asking the question feels like a kind of betrayal of a friend who’s been nothing but kind to him. 

‘Does he seem… strange, to you?’ Martin tries again. It’s difficult to ask a question he doesn’t even completely understand himself. 

Tim squints at him. ‘Are you finally coming to me for boy advice?’ 

‘No!’ Martin says, for a moment horrified. ‘I just - worry. I’m worried.’ 

Tim starts to pull off his jacket. ‘Other than the fact that he almost got eaten alive by worms a few months ago, I’d say he’s fine.’

Martin nods, willing himself to believe it. Of course. Jon is fine. He’s handling this better than any of them. He’s alright. 

After a moment’s consideration, Tim hands Martin his coffee. ‘Take this,’ he says. ‘You look  _ way _ too tired to be here right now.’ 

‘I don’t drink -’ Martin begins, but Tim just shakes his head. ‘It’s hot chocolate,’ he explains. ‘Just drink it.’ 

‘Thanks,’ Martin says. He takes a few sips, and it’s delicious. Of course it is.

‘Look, I know everything is kind of, well, a horrible ball of worry and worms right now ,’ Tim says. He’s sitting perched on Martin’s desk, looking thoughtful. ‘But out of everything, I’d say Jon is the least of our worries. He just isn’t the kind of guy you worry about, you know?’

‘Who isn’t?’ Martin hears someone say. Both Tim and Martin jump, until their eyes land on Jon, who’s standing in the doorway. There’s flecks of snow in his hair, on his eyelashes. He smiles at them like he’s been looking forward to seeing them for hours. It surprises Martin, nearly every time he sees Jon, how beautiful he is. He really should be getting used to it by now. 

‘Barack Obama,’ Tim says, deadpan. ‘You’re late, mister.’ 

‘As if you’ve ever been here on time,’ Jon says, laughter in his voice. As he makes his way towards his desk, his eyes flick toward Martin’s. But he isn’t smiling anymore. He looks like he’s baring his teeth. He looks like… 

Just as fast as the moments comes, it’s gone. Jon winks in Martin’s direction and sits down at his desk, takes off his coat. The snow in his hair is melting, and all Martin can think of is the winter outside, how cold it must be. He takes another sip of hot chocolate and lets it warm him, slowly, from the inside out. 

***

Sasha calls Tim around three and says she’ll come by the Institute on Monday. 

‘Five hurrahs for Sasha,’ Tim says after she’s hung up. ‘She really did bring us presents.’ 

‘Gee, this is just like Christmas,’ Jon says. ‘I hope I get a remote control car.’ 

‘It’s nice of her,’ Martin hears himself tell Jon, in a voice that sounds just a smidge too sharp to be his own. ‘It’s a nice thing to do.’ 

Jon just blinks at him, one, two, three times. ‘Of course it is.’

Tim looks between them, brows furrowed. Jon shrugs, then smiles, then goes back to sorting his papers. 

Martin feels a familiar prickle of shame, of embarrassment. He isn’t even sure exactly why he’s upset. He just knows that he is. 

‘I’ll just go - I’ll go read a statement,’ he says, finally. 

‘Don’t get too into it,’ Tim says. ‘We don’t need another Spooky McSpook in the office.’

Tim dislikes the statements even more than Martin does. Martin knows he hates how Sasha gets when she reads them, unsettled and worked up all at once. Martin has never told her so, but he doesn’t really care for it either. Her voice grows entirely too hoarse, too quiet, whens he reads them. It always sounds like she’s pretending to be someone else. Someone bigger, someone more in control. Martin likes regular Sasha just fine. 

‘I promise,’ Martin says. Then he goes to find a statement. 

Jon’s attempt to organize the archives, although slow going, has actually proven to be pretty useful. In one of the storage rooms there’s quite a few shelves where every statement has been marked with a date and given a category. A lot of the categories don’t really make any sense, but Martin will take what he can get. 

Looking through the shelves, Martin can’t help but snort as he reads the labels.  _ Spiders, Meat is meat (or something?), Insects (not spiders) _ . Martin usually just picks up something at random, but today he finds himself picking up several statements and skimming through them before discarding them again. He’s feeling restless, worried. More than that, he’s scared. Something other than the usual fear, the one who’s lived in him for as long as he can remember. This is something new, something scratching around the back of his brain, trying to cut itself lose. 

In an attempt to distract himself, he focuses on the statements in front of him. It’s when he’s almost picked out something from the  _ Spiders  _ collection that his eyes land on a small folder near the end of the shelf, which hasn’t been labeled with anything at all. 

‘Maybe Jon just forgot,’ Martin thinks, even as he reaches for it. ‘It’s probably nothing.’ But here he is, trying to open it anyway. 

‘Martin,’ Jon says, and Martin drops the folder to the floor. 

‘Jon,’ Martin says. He bends down to pick it up, but somehow Jon is already holding it, looking sheepish. 

‘Sorry,’ he says, half-smile in place. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you.’ 

‘I didn’t hear you come in,’ Martin says, voice nearly at a whisper. He’s suddenly painfully aware that he and Jon are here, alone together, in a dimly lit room. And Jon is standing awfully close. Much closer than he really needs to. Martin could count his freckles, if he wanted to. 

‘I just wanted to check in on you,’ Jon says. ‘You seemed upset earlier.’ 

‘What, no. I’m fine. Completely - I’m fine.’ Martin wills himself to stop talking. 

‘Good,’ Jon says. ‘That’s good.’ He pauses. ‘You haven’t been making me tea recently.’ 

Martin takes a step back. His back touches the shelf. Jon’s eyes are so big on his face, and they make Martin think of the ocean like it’s described in statements sometimes, how it stretches in every direction, how small you feel when you see it, how insignificant you really are, to masses of water. ‘You haven’t seemed to be liking it.’ 

‘But I do like it,’ Jon says. His voice has that same, warm tone again. Low, like he doesn’t want anyone but Martin to hear. ‘I like everything you do.’ 

‘You… like everything I do,’ Martin repeats, slowly. He isn’t sure if his brain is working properly. If he was Tim, he’d probably knew exactly what to do in this situation. But he's not Tim. 

‘I do.’ Jon smiles. ‘But you don’t feel the same, do you?’ 

‘Of course I do,’ Martin hurries to say, because it looks like Jon might leave. And Jon can’t leave. Martin has wanted this for so long. This closeness. Has craved it more than anything. 

‘Really?’ Jon’s smile widens. His teeth are sharp. No. His teeth are white. He reminds Martin of the porcelain dolls his mom would display around the house, with their glass eyes and their tiny limbs. Beautiful. Never to be touched. ‘Then what do you like about me?’ 

‘What?’ Martin whispers. 

‘What do you like about me?’ 

_ Everything _ , Martin is tempted to say. But that’s not true is it? Martin looks at Jon, at the tilt of his head, at the two unbuttoned buttons on his shirt, at the soft drag of his mouth.  _ What do you like about me?  _

Martin can’t think of anything to say. He could kick himself for it. 

‘Martin,’ Jon says. ‘It’s okay.’ While Martin stands there, wordless, he bends down slightly and kisses Martin’s cheek. He smells soft and flowery, the clean smell of a garden after it rains. There’s something awfully wrong about it. 

‘You’ll learn to like me,’ he says. ‘Just wait.’ Then he spins around on his heel, and is gone. 

*** 

Martin leaves the Institute early, saying nothing to Jon and mumbling an excuse about a migraine to Tim, who looks doubtful but says nothing to dispute him. 

Martin takes the tube home, sitting almost completely still, breathing in the stuffy air, suddenly very happy to be around people he doesn’t work with, even though they’re only strangers. 

He needs to get home. He needs to drink some tea. He needs to figure out what the fuck is wrong with him. 

Martin gets home. He changes into his softest sweater, a knitted one, and drinks tea out of his biggest mug, trying to think.

What the  _ fuck  _ is wrong with him? 

Jon just told him that he liked him. That he cared about him. And instead of saying anything in return, Martin had stood there, completely frozen, trying to relearn how to breathe. 

Martin knows he isn’t good at this, whatever it is. He isn’t good at caring for people in more than a strictly friendly way. Actually, he isn’t good at caring for people, period. Most of Martin’s life, the people he has cared for have considered his caring to be his least attractive quality. For a moment, Martin thinks of calling his mom. If anyone would be willing to tell him what exactly is wrong with him, it’s her. 

Martin has liked Jon for a very long time. He knows he has. He has liked Jon since… since for a very long time. 

_ What do you like about me?  _

Martin gets up from the sofa. He goes to his bedroom, then to his bedside table. He opens the drawer, and picks out the first of his notebooks he sees. It’s small, and black, and Martin knows that out of the hundred poems that are in there, at least fifty of them are about Jon. 

Martin has always liked love, as a concept. He just doesn’t seem to be very good at it. 

Slowly, deliberately, Martin starts to flip through the pages. 

Once he starts reading, a trickle of cold starts to seep into his stomach. It settles there, and it waits. Once he starts reading, he can’t seem to stop. 

Martin knows the words are his because he recognizes his own handwriting. He knows the words are his because they sound like him, they feel like him. If he concentrates, he can even remember the feeling of writing them. 

But the person Martin is writing about in these poems isn’t Jon. It can’t be. 

_ The smell of smoke, on you, always there _ , Martin has written at some point.  _ Dark eyes, _ he has written in another.  _ I wish I could see you smile,  _ he has written in a third. 

Martin doesn’t notice that his hands are shaking until he goes to touch the scarring on his face. He closes his eyes. Wills his heart to slow again. 

Either something is truly, awfully, wrong, or Martin is losing his mind.    
  


Martin is probably losing his mind. 

He looks at the notebook on his lap, and thinks of the line he knows he’s written somewhere in there.  _ To care so much and hide it so well _ . The Jon Martin knows doesn’t seem to be hiding anything. 

Martin let’s his fingers dig into the cover of the notebook. The Jon Martin knows doesn’t seem to care, either. 

Outside, it’s starting to snow. 

  
  


*** 

Martin sits up until nearly five in the morning, reading through every poem he’s ever written about Jon. Or about a person he thinks is meant to be Jon. Or a fake Jon. A Jon of his imagination. 

By the time morning comes around, Martin has written down every piece of information about imaginary Jon he can find on a list. The list ends up looking a bit like this: 

  1. Dark hair. Long? Grey, maybe. 
  2. Brown eyes. 
  3. Dark skin. 
  4. Short. Shorter than me. 
  5. Not friendly. 
  6. Drinks the tea I make him. 
  7. Likes facts? 
  8. Reads a lot. 
  9. Grumpy. 
  10. Nervous. 
  11. Glasses. 
  12. Dresses old fashioned. 
  13. Doesn’t like poetry. 
  14. Caring. 
  15. Hard worker. 
  16. Funny (sometimes?) 
  17. Gullible. Sometimes. 
  18. Very strange. 
  19. Doesn’t like me. 



  
  


This person sounds nothing like Jon. But staring at the list, Martin feels the old stirring of fear in his brain, of something trying to cut lose. Like there’s a word he knows he knows, but can’t quite think of. Like he’s had something at the tip of his tongue for months. 

A google search for Jon’s name reveals nothing new. Jon doesn’t really have that big of an online presence to begin with, and every picture Martin finds looks like the real Jon. The Jon he knows. Jon with the blond hair, the blue eyes, the half-smile and crooked front teeth. 

So why does looking at them make him feel so unsettled?

It’s almost seven in the morning by the time Martin realizes that he hasn’t slept at all. Instead he’s spent the last few hours going through every single memory he has of Jon, trying to figure out a way to make any of it make sense. The problem is, of course, that his memories of Jon aren’t quite as clear has he would like them to be. In fact, whenever he tries to think too hard about any conversation they’ve had together, everything starts to grow a bit fuzzy, and then he loses his focus. He’s on his way to make his third cup of tea of the hour by the time he figures out what’s going on. The Jon he knows just isn’t someone Martin is supposed to think too hard about. 

Who doesn’t want Martin to think about Jon? There’s ice in his stomach. He thinks of blue. 

Who doesn’t want Martin to know him?

  
  


***

He doesn’t dare go back to the institute. Partly because it’s a Saturday, and he doesn’t have any excuse to be there outside of work hours. Partly because he might run into Jon, though he struggles to think of any reason why Jon would ever be at work during the weekend. He’s never been the type to care much for their job, unlike imaginary Jon, apparently. 

To see Jon now wouldn’t be a good idea. Martin wouldn’t know what to do with him. Yelling 

_ ‘I don’t remember you’  _ at a person doesn’t really seem like a good way to confront them at all. 

Instead, Martin decides to find Tim. 

Martin has been to Tim’s apartment a few times, and every time he’s been struck by how homely the place is. ‘I was kind of expecting a bachelor pad,’ he told Tim the first time he came to visit. 

‘That might be the meanest thing you’ve ever said to me,’ Tim had told him, and then served Martin homemade lemonade, probably mostly out of spite. 

It was delicious, though, like everything Tim makes. In another life Martin might be jealous of him, but in this life Martin knows exactly how good Tim is. How much he deserves kindness sent his way. 

That’s why Martin almost feels bad as he stands outside Tim’s apartment, banging on his door at eight in the morning. Almost. 

Tim comes to the door after exactly two minutes of increasingly loud knocking. The door is ripped open fast enough for Martin to have to jump a few steps back. ‘What the hell are you doing, Martin?’ he asks, sounding only about 50 percent awake. 

‘I’m sorry, I just - I have to talk to you.’ 

‘At fuck all o’clock? Really?’ 

‘I think I might have discovered something strange. Worse than strange.’ 

‘Well, that’s far too ominous for me to ignore,’ Tim says slowly, stepping aside to let Martin in. ‘I hope you like tea for breakfast. That’s all I really have to offer.’ 

Martin ends up being the one who makes them both tea, while Tim sits yawning at the coffee table. He looks a lot younger like this, Martin ralizes. With a Mountain Goats t-shirt on that’s at least a few sizes too big, and his hair pointing in every direction. 

‘So what is this strange finding of yours?’ Tim asks after Martin has handed him a mug. ‘Please tell me it’s not related to girls or worms or worm girls.’

‘It’s nothing like that,’ Martin says. He hesitates, unsure of how to say it in a way that won’t drive Tim to recommend him a newer, better therapist. ‘It’s about Jon.’ 

‘You two are fighting,’ Tim says, voice solemn. ‘I can tell. It’s the weirdest, quietest fighting I’ve ever seen, but don’t think I haven’t noticed.’ 

‘We aren’t fighting,’ Martin says. ‘It’s just. I’m not sure if he’s alright. He seems wrong. Just wrong, all over.’

Tim tilts his head. ‘What? I thought we liked Jon. You always liked him.’ 

‘I do! I - At least I thought I did.’ 

‘Then what changed?’ 

Martin hesitates. Finally, he reaches into his pocket and hands Tim a crumpled piece of paper. 

‘I’ve been writing poetry about Jon for… a long time. And the person I’ve been writing about is nothing like him. He’s like… Well, he’s the kind of person that list is describing.’ 

‘ _ Shorter than me _ . As if that could be Jon,’ Tim says, with a small laugh. But there’s something strained in his face. He keeps drumming his fingers against the tabletop. ‘I’ll admit, that is very strange.’ 

‘I just feel like I might know this person. This other Jon. Like he’s someone I knew, who went away.’ 

Tim closes his eyes for a moment. He stares at the list again, then blinks. ‘I can’t remember how we met.’

‘What?’ 

‘Jon and I. Why can’t I remember how we met?’ 

Martin just looks at him, helpless. His hands aren’t shaking, but something is crawling around his mind, something large and dark has taken hold, and it’s refusing to let go. ‘Something’s wrong. I know it is.’ 

‘Maybe we should talk to Jon about this,’ Tim says, though he sounds unsure. His fingers drum faster. ‘Maybe it really is nothing.’ 

‘Maybe,’ Martin says. 

‘But you don’t think it is,’ Tim finishes. He nods, as if he understands. And maybe he does. Maybe he will force himself to understand, because that’s the kind of person he is. The kind of friend. 

Martin is suddenly so deeply grateful for him that it’s difficult to breathe around it. Instead of saying anything, he just nods, unsure if his words would ever come out right. 

They look out the window for a little while, the two of them. At London stretching its limbs and waking up, at the day starting, at people slowly making their way out to the world.

Martin thinks of dark, serious eyes and a hard stare. 

‘Do you have any pictures of him?’ he asks, breaking the silence. ‘Of Jon.’ 

‘Your Jon, or real Jon?’ Tim asks with a small smile. Martin feels his face heat again. 

‘Just teasing,’ Tim says. He empties his cup in one last swig. ‘I can go see if I have any. Just wait a second.’ 

And then he jumps up from the table and disappears into another room. 

It’s only a few minutes later when Martin hears Tim’s voice again, unsure and wavering. 

‘Martin,’ he yells. ‘I need you to come here.’ 

Martin puts down his mug and follows the voice. He finds Tim in his bedroom, sitting on the floor, holding what looks like a polaroid in his hand. When he looks up at Martin his eyes are wide and unblinking, his jaw clenched. He hands the photograph over to Martin, who takes it without quite daring to look. 

‘Is it bad?’ he asks Tim, who’s still sitting there, his hands oddly still in his lap. 

‘I think it might be bad, yes,’ Tim says, his voice slow and uncertain. 

Without trusting himself to say anything else, Martin looks at the polaroid. 

The moment he sees it, he remembers abruptly when it was taken. 

Jon’s birthday, about a year ago. It had been Tim’s idea to take Jon out for ice-cream. It had been a good day. Jon had been smiling a lot. He had been - Martin can’t really remember anything else about what Jon did, of course not, but he remembers the smiling. And he remembers Elias taking the photo, after Sasha asked him to. Remembers standing there with Sasha on one side and Jon on the other, feeling the heat of Jon’s shoulder pressed against his. 

‘What’s the point of polaroids? You have a perfectly fine phone.’ Tim had asked Sasha, who laughed. ‘They last longer,’ she said, no further explanation. 

After the ice-cream, when Tim was sulking about how he had no nice pictures of all four of them together, Sasha had handed him the polaroid. 

The polaroid is of four people. Tim, and Sasha, and Martin, and… a fourth person, someone Martin doesn’t recognize. A fourth person who looks like a stranger, but who Tim has his arms wrapped around him like he is anything but. 

  
The person has dark hair, with grey streaks running through it. He’s wearing a pair of old-looking, round glasses, perched carefully low on his nose. He’s shorter than Martin. And he’s smiling a small, private smile to the camera. Small, but real. He looks so real. 

Martin stares at the polaroid and thinks:  _ So this is what it feels like. I’d forgotten.  _

In the polaroid, Jon Sims stares back. 

  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains some stuff that might be triggering: Stabbing, and some (very slight) body horror.

It had been so dark in the tunnels. Even darker still, in the artifact storage.

Jon wasn’t afraid. That’s what he told himself as he made his way through the aisles, his chest rising and falling far too fast for him to actually believe it. 

Everything had happened to fast. One moment, Sasha was rushing off with Elias to set off the fire alarms, while Jon had been hiding down in the tunnels, with Martin and Tim. Then the worms grew angrier, faster. Jon couldn’t remember much of it at all, other than the white hot panic. The running. Hearing Tim and Martin heaving behind him, their feet smacking the earth, and then nothing at all. 

Now he was in the artifact storage, and everything was dark. 

Jon had never spent much time in the storage. He knew Sasha was familiar with the place, that even Martin had spent some time there, attempting to organize the artifacts. But Jon had never dared to stay there for more than a few minutes at a time. Not even his curiosity was strong enough to keep him between the old remnants of life down there. 

Because he was a coward. Jon knew that, sure as anything. Because sometimes he heard the faint sound of knocking even when there was nothing. Because the dark had a sharp mouth, filled with teeth, and Jon was something to be eaten. 

Pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose, Jon continued.

He was not afraid. 

When his eyes landed on the table, he knew almost immediately that he should walk away from it. That he should move on, that perhaps he should run. That he should yell out for Martin and Tim, and hope they’d find him. 

Instead he moved closer. He couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t. 

The table was in front of him and he was reaching out a hand. He was reaching out a hand and his breaths were coming fast and shallow. 

The darkness opened its eyes, smiling. 

Jon Sims was no more. 

***

London is waking up. The people are making their way out from comfort, into the world. Their bodies, clumsy and unfulfilled, move through the fog and the remnants of snow from the night before. 

From the window, Martin and Tim are watching. Between them is a picture, and a list. 

‘We need to talk to Sasha,’ Tim says. They’ve been trying to have this conversation for hours, with no luck. No matter what way they spin it, there’s just new questions. One dead end after another. 

‘Yes,’ Martin says. His fingertips are touching the edges of the polaroid. ‘Yeah.’ 

‘And we have to tell her -,’ Tim begins, then pauses. ‘I’m not sure what we should tell her.’ 

‘Maybe she knows,’ Martin says, his voice sounding strange to his own ears. Brittle. ‘Maybe this is one of the things she’s been researching.’ 

‘She wouldn’t do that,’ Tim says. He’s not looking at Martin, but at the remnants of frost snaking its way up the window glass. ‘She’s still our friend first, archivist second.’ 

‘I don’t even know - I’m not sure,’ Martin says. He takes a breath, tries to start over. ‘It bothers me. That we can’t even fathom what might have happened.’ 

‘Maybe there’s two of them,’ Tim says. ‘Or maybe he changed. Maybe we forgot that he changed, somehow.’ 

‘Maybe.’ 

‘It’s just - Jon doesn’t seem like the kind to hurt anyone. He’s kind.’ 

‘And what about the other Jon?’ 

‘We don’t even  _ remember  _ the other Jon. How can we even be sure if he’s real?’ 

Martin isn’t sure. He isn’t sure of anything. 

The Jon they know is kind. The Jon they know wouldn’t hurt anyone. The Jon they know is probably home now, sleeping, unaware that his friends are saying these horrible things about him. Doubting him. 

Martin looks at the polaroid again. At the list. 

‘Sasha has to know something,’ he says.

Tim nods. ‘I’ll call her.’

***

Sasha asks to meet them at a cafe on the opposite side of town from the institute. It takes Tim and Martin almost an hour to get there, and by the time Sasha arrives they’re both on edge, their eyes never leaving the door. 

When Sasha sees them, her face breaks into a smile. When they see her, they tense up. There’s a scar on her face, one that wasn’t there before. A thin, pale thing, snaking its way from the bottom of her left eye, down her neck, toward her collarbone. 

‘You have no idea how good it is to see you,’ Sasha says as she sits down. Her hair is damp with snow and she shakes it, water droplets landing all over the table, all over Martin and Tim. 

‘What the hell happened to you?’ Tim asks. His face is still, his voice quiet. 

‘An unexpected encounter,’ Sasha says easily. ‘Who wants presents?’ 

‘You can’t just expect us to ignore shit like that,’ Tim says. There’s a faint red to his cheeks now. ‘Are you alright?’ 

‘I’m fine,’ Sasha says. Her eyes drift from Tim, to Martin, and back again. ‘I promise you. I’m fine.’ 

‘Not sure how much that promise is worth,’ Tim says, and abruptly he reminds Martin of a kid again. Wordlessly, Sasha grabs his hand and squeezes it. Once, twice. ‘I’m okay.’

‘I’m glad you’re back,’ Martin says. And he is. He’s missed her. All of her, even the new scars and dark circles, the way she walks like she’s ready to take off at a run at any given opportunity. 

‘God, I’ve missed London,’ Sasha says. She throws her head back and laughs. ‘Did you know I was called an asshole for bumping into someone at least twice on the way here? It really is magical.’ 

‘Why this place?’ Martin asks, looking around. It’s an anonymous, small cafe. It looks like it’s customer body mainly consists of women over the age of 60. 

‘You said you needed to discuss something important,’ Sasha says, eyeing them. Tim and Martin nod. ‘Well, the farther away from the institute, the better.’ 

They sit in that knowledge for a while, the three of them. The knowledge that the place they work might be the unsafest place in the world for them, right now. 

‘Let’s see those presents, shall we,’ Tim says finally, breaking the silence. 

Sasha raises her eyebrows. ‘You’ll call them inappropriate.’ 

‘Dear God, Sasha,’ Tim says, smiling. ‘I truly hope they are.’ 

Without saying anything else, Sasha starts rummaging through her bag. Then, finally, she drops something on the table. 

Martin squints at them, then picks one of them up. 

It’s a knife. And a strange one at that. The handle looks like it’s made of some kind of bone, engraved with small, intricate patterns. Looking at them closer, Martin sees something that looks like the sun. The sun, looking out over the land. The land, which is dark and sullen. 

‘It’s beautiful,’ Martin says. And he means it. 

‘This might be the creepiest present I’ve ever gotten,’ Tim says, turning his around in his hands. ‘Why?’ 

‘A friend gave them to me,’ Sasha says, quietly. She pushes some hair out of her face, and it strikes Martin then, all at once, how far a cry she is from the person Martin first got to know. ‘And I thought we could all use the protection.’

‘I’ll end up cutting off my own thumb with this, someday,’ Tim says, still looking at the knife. ‘And then it’ll be your fault.’ 

‘As long as you keep it on you,’ Sasha says. Her voice is still light, still joking, but beneath it Martin sees something else. Something all too familiar. 

Tim meets her eye. ‘I will. Promise.’ 

Sasha looks at Martin, who nods. ‘Of course I will.’ 

‘Good,’ she says. She shrugs, a sharp pull to her mouth. ‘It isn’t much but it’s something.’ 

They order some tea, all three of them. Sasha stirs more sugar into her cup and asks: ‘What did you need to talk to me about?’ 

They try to explain, as best as they can. Sasha just looks at them intently through it all, her eyes dark, eyebrows furrowed. It isn’t until Martin hands her the polaroid that he sees any visible shock on her face. Sees her pale. 

‘Jon’s birthday,’ she whispers, turning the polaroid over in her hands, as if expecting there to be anything on the backside. ‘I remember that.’ 

‘Do you, really?’ Martin asks her. His voice is shaking, and he wishes it wouldn’t. ‘Do you remember it clearly?’ 

Sasha just looks at him for a moment. ‘No,’ she says finally. ‘Not everything.’ 

‘Something happened to Jon,’ Tim says. His fingers are going at it again, drumming on the table. His leg is bouncing. All three of them keep throwing looks toward the door. ‘We just have to figure out what.’ 

‘I’ve never seen anything exactly like this before,’ Sasha says. ‘I’m not sure what it could be.’ 

‘But do you think it’s dangerous?’ Tim asks.

Sasha tilts her head. ‘All of this is dangerous.’ 

‘Do you think Jon is safe?’ Martin asks. He’s painfully aware that Sasha probably doesn’t have any answers. He wants to ask her, anyway. He needs to know. 

‘Which Jon?’ She asks. 

Martin abruptly realizes that he isn’t sure what he meant to ask her. Who he’s afraid of, and who he’s afraid for. 

‘Jon wouldn’t hurt anyone,’ Tim says. ‘Whatever this is, I’m sure it’s not anything he wanted.’ 

  
‘Anyone could hurt anyone,’ Sasha says, still looking at the backside of the polaroid. 

‘That’s not true.’ Tim’s voice is clipped. Cold. Worried. 

On the table between them, there are two knives. Martin doesn’t dare look at them. 

‘I need to figure out what this could be,’ Sasha says, after a brief pause. 

‘Should we tell Jon about this?’ Martin asks, even as the idea leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. 

‘I don’t think that would be a very good idea,’ Sasha says. ‘I think we need to be sure what we’re dealing with, first.’ 

‘Yes. Right.’ Martin nods. His heart is beating, fast and relentless in his chest. He needs to not lose it, he decides. He needs to be able to help. 

Next to him, Tim is finally sitting still. 

‘What do we do?’ Martin asks. 

Sasha looks between them again. ‘We need to go to the institute,’ Sasha says, finally. ‘We need to look through some old statements.’ 

‘Are we sure Jon won’t be there?’ Martin asks. 

‘It’s a Saturday,’ Tim says, smiling slightly. ‘I can’t imagine he’d be there.’ 

‘He could show up,’ Sasha says. She hands the polaroid over to Martin, then reaches for her bag. ‘But I have an idea.’ 

***

‘This is a horrible idea,’ Tim says. He’s resting his face in his hands, the rocking motions of the tube making his upper body sway, as if he’s rocking himself. ‘This is a horrible, awful, idiotic idea.’ 

‘I think it’s fine,’ Martin says. He doesn’t think it’s fine. Just to be sure, he’s trying not to think about anything at all. 

‘I don’t like the idea of Sasha going by herself,’ Tim says. ‘To the creepy old institute with creepy, old Elias.’ 

‘She’s the only one who knows enough to know what statements to look for. And we’ve all been alone at the institute hundreds of times, and we’ve been fine.’ 

‘Then I should have come with her,’ Tim says. ‘We don’t really need to be two people to deal with Jon, do we? He’ll probably just offer us a pint and call it a day.’ 

_ I don’t want to be alone with him _ , Martin thinks, before he catches himself. Martin tries again.  _ I’m not scared of Jon _ . No matter what’s going on, no matter how strange things are getting, Martin can’t quite believe that Jon would hurt him. 

Jon isn’t the kind to hurt anyone. He might be a bit off, but he wouldn’t do that. After all, he could be the victim here. 

He probably is. 

This Jon is their friend. The other Jon could be anything, regardless of how warm Martin feels when looking at the picture of him. 

‘We’ll keep him occupied,’ Martin says. They’re off the tube now, making their way toward Jon’s address. ‘We’ll give Sasha time to look for statements without the threat of him arriving. That’s all we have to do.’ 

‘While Sasha risks her life.’ 

‘She’s not risking her life,’ Martin says, but the lie catches in his throat. She doesn’t really seem to be doing much else, these days. 

They’re outside Jon’s building, now. Neither Martin nor Tim have ever been to Jon’s apartment, though they’ve learned the address over the years. It’s a fairly nice neighborhood, and looks more suitable for small families than for a bachelor like Jon. When they make their way inside the apartment building, it all smells faintly of lemon, clean. 

They stand for a while by the entrance, just looking at each other, unsure of what to do next. Neither of them know Jon’s apartment number. 

Then a woman comes walking down the stairs. She looks pretty, but tired, which Martin deems understandable considering how she has two small children following close behind her, a boy and a girl. The children are talking loudly about something, squealing with laughter every once in a while. When the woman sees Martin and Tim, she pauses. 

‘May I help you?’ she asks. The kids have stopped to and sit down on the stairs, while the woman is walking over to the mailboxes, a stressed bounce to her steps. Tim waves at the kids, and they wave back, smiling. 

‘Yeah. Yes. We are - Well, we’re looking for someone,’ Martin says. He gives himself an internal shake and tries again. ‘We’re looking for Jonathan Sims. Do you know what floor he’s on?’ 

‘Jon Sims.’ The woman looks up from where she’s been sorting through her mail. ‘Yes, I know him. He and Eleanor are great friends.’ She looks at her daughter, who’s looking at the floor. ‘Aren’t you, Ellie?’ 

Slowly, Ellie shakes her head. 

The woman looks back at Martin and Tim again, then shrugs. ‘You know how they get when they’re that age. Jon used to be her favorite neighbor, and then one day she didn’t want anything to do with him. But we used to go out for ice-cream sometimes, all four of us, didn’t we, Ellie?’

Ellie nods this time, still not looking at any of them. She’s small all over, small hands resting on small knees. Her leg is bouncing, and the realization hits Martin all at once. She’s scared. 

Tim and Martin glance at each other for a second. Then Tim smiles, bright as ever, and walks over to the woman. ‘We’re old friends of Jon, and we’re just wondering what apartment number is his? We just wanted to stop by for a surprise visit.’ 

Martin doesn’t bother to hear her response. Instead he walks up the stairs to where Ellie is sitting. ‘Hi, Ellie,’ he says. 

She looks up at him eyes wide. Martin has to smile, he can’t help it. She’s wrapped up in a jacket so thick that she looks more like a snowball than a kid. Next to her, her brother has a gigantic pom-pom hat stuffed over his ears. 

‘Hi,’ she says.

‘I’m Martin,’ he says. ‘I’m a friend of Jon’s.’ 

At the mention of Jon, she visibly stills. Martin watches as she reaches for her brother, as if to shield him, somehow. ‘I’m not trying to frighten you,’ Martin says, careful to keep his voice calm, neutral. ‘I’m just a friend who would like to help him.’ 

Ellie’s eyes flick to Martin’s, then to her Mom and Tim, a few meters away. Then to her knees. ‘Jon looks like a squirrel,’ she says finally. Firmly, like she’s trying to tell Martin something important. When Martin doesn’t seem to be getting it, she tries again, even more stern. ‘Normal Jon looks like a squirrel.’ 

‘Right,’ Martin says. He hesitates. There’s something dark in his mind, moving, willing itself to break loose. ‘Do you want to tell me anything else about normal Jon?’ 

‘He never came to visit me at school,’ Ellie says, the words coming slow and careful. She’s not looking at Martin. Martin thinks her eyes might be closed. ‘He never came to the playground.’ Next to Ellie, her brother is shifting restless. She keeps holding on to him, small hands clinging to the fabric of his coat. ‘He never came to watch me through the window when it’s dark.’ 

  
There’s something dark here, Martin thinks. Something dark and impossibly cold. 

‘Ellie, Ben, time to go’ the woman yells. Without another word, her kids get up from the staircase and run over to her.

‘Have a good day,’ she tells Tim, then smiles in Martin’s direction. Moments later, she’s ushered the kids outside, and Tim and Martin are left in silence. 

‘That woman doesn’t think Jon has lived here for months,’ Tim says, just as Martin says: ‘I think that girl might have known Jon. Jon from the photo.’ 

They stare at each other. Tim’s phone rings. 

***

Sasha called them the moment she left the institute. ‘Meet me at Martin’s apartment,’ she said. ‘That’s closest.’ 

When they arrive at the apartment, they find that Sasha has already let herself in. ‘Keeping your spare key under the doormat is a  _ very  _ amateur move,’ she says when as they walk in to find her already on the couch, piles of statements stacked on the coffee table in front of her. 

‘I never thought anyone would have a reason to break in here,’ Martin says. His hands are cold from the journey home. He’s cold all over, and he can’t stop itching at the scars on his arms. 

He doesn’t need to look to know that Tim is doing the same. 

‘So everything went alright?’ Tim asks, eyeing the statements. He sits down on the floor next to the sofa, but looks hesitant to even touch the statements. 

‘Not quite,’ Sasha says. Martin stops dead in his tracks. ‘Jon was there.’ 

‘Why was he there?’ Martin asks. He hates how high his voice gets, how tense. ‘What did he say?’ 

Sasha narrows her eyes. ‘Just that he had some extra work to catch up on, and that he was happy to see me.’ 

‘Right,’ Martin says. He thinks of Ellie, the faint shaking in her voice. ‘He’s lying.’

‘I figured,’ Sasha says. ‘When has Jon ever tried to do extra work?’ 

‘That’s not Jon,’ Martin says. The words are out before he can stop them. He realizes as soon as he’s said them, that he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care if it sound crazy. He doesn’t care if none of this makes any sense, he doesn’t care if no one will believe him. He needs to say it, because it’s true. ‘It’s not him. It’s someone else.’

Sasha and Tim exchange glances. ‘If that’s true, this person must have been playing tricks with our minds for months,’ Sasha says. ‘Fabricated whole years of our lives. More memories than we could even begin to understand.’

  
  


‘They can’t have been doing that good of a job,’ Martin says. He knows he sounds petulant. He can’t help it. ‘I don’t really remember anything.’ He looks from Tim to Sasha and back again. ‘None of us remember.’ 

And he knows that they know it’s true. 

*** 

They spend the day, and then the evening, reading statements, trying to find something, anything that sounds right. 

Sasha keeps insisting that she can’t tell them everything she knows. Tim keeps yelling about it, and then calming down, and then yelling again. 

She says she hasn’t seen anything quite like this before, but that if it’s anything like what she thinks it is, she might be familiar with things that are similar. 

Martin wants her to tell her the truth. He wants to know what’s going on. He wants to stop feeling the polaroid burn in his pockets, wants to stop himself from picking it up to look at it every few minutes. 

Every time he sees the face of the man in the photograph, Normal Jon, maybe, he gets the same, sinking feeling in his stomach. Like Martin has let him down, whoever he is. Like he is one more person Martin could have helped, but didn’t. 

Martin wants to know him, more than anything. Wants to understand. 

Who is he? Why does Martin care about him so much? 

Martin is familiar with caring about Jon. Loving him, almost. Thinking about loving him, at least. But the Jon Martin is used to thinking about in that way, is unknowable. Was perhaps always meant to be so. Empty, yet approachable. Hollow. 

The Jon is the photograph is none of those things, Martin is sure of it. And Martin needs to find out what it’s like to know him. To do something like love him. 

They read statements. They drink tea. They will themselves not to fall asleep. 

Sometime around midnight, Tim says the words Martin is sure they’ve all been thinking: ‘What if we can’t fix him?’

‘We’re going to fix him,’ Sasha says, easy as that. Like she knows they will. Like she can see the future, and it’s bright.

Sasha is an excellent liar, Martin thinks. But not quite good enough to fool him. 

Sometime around two am, after they’re fifth cup of tea, Sasha and Tim fall asleep. Sasha on the couch, looking younger than Martin has seen her in a long time. Tim on the floor, wrapped in blankets and a hoodie he’s borrowed from Martin. 

Martin cares for them so deeply. That’s all he can think of as she watches their chests rise and fall, the shadows on their face only broken by the soft light of the street lamps outside. He wants them to be safe. 

If normal Jon were here, Martin would care for him to. He deserves that, Martin thinks. He deserves for someone to miss him, even if they don’t quite know him anymore. 

Martin continues to read the statements. A few times he finds himself almost drifting toward sleep, but each time he jolts awake as memories of blue, of ice, of rainy gardens and soft smiles make it impossible to sleep again. 

Martin thinks of the last conversation he had with Jon. How Jon had kissed him on the cheek, right top of one of Martin’s scars. How he’d walked away, smiling, folder in hand. 

Martin sits up, abruptly. He rubs his face, replaying the memory again. 

The folder. 

***

The archives are dark at night. 

The archives are always dark, really. But Martin remembers all too well from when he lived there that the archives at night become even more of a maze of dark corners, of hallways that seem to shrink as you walk them. 

The archives are not a friendly place. 

As Martin lets himself through the doors, he feels a new twinge of guilt for not telling Sasha and Tim where he was going. But he’s just going to get a folder, then going straight home. He’s just going to get a folder, and he’ll be fine, and even if he isn’t, at least he’s sure they’ll be. 

Once Martin gets down to the office, he turns on the lights. They flicker on, one by one, bathing everything in a soft hue of green. Making the shadows stretch across the floor, reaching for him as he walks past. 

No. They’re not reaching for anything. Martin is fine. He just needs to take a look at Jon’s desk, and then he’ll be gone, fast as he came. 

He walks toward the desk, and starts looking. The desk is covered in stacks of paper, of statements and notes, but none of it seems to be what Martin is looking for. Impatient, he starts opening the drawers, emptying them as he goes. There’s no folder. If not here, then where else?

‘Martin,’ someone says. It’s not a voice he recognizes. It has never been a voice he even remotely recognizes. 

The thing that is not Jon is standing in the doorway. ‘What are you doing here?’ the thing that is not Jon says, not moving. His eyes are fixed on Martin. His smile is warm. 

‘Just - I was - I’m just looking for something.’ Martin swallows. His eyes dart around the room. Should he run? To where? ‘Nothing important.’ 

‘No, Martin,’ the thing that is not Jon says, moving a few steps closer. His feet make no sound as they touch the floor, Martin realizes. He wonders how many things like this he’s been ignoring, too busy longing for normalcy to realize when the thing’s eyes turned off and on, when the things laugh turned into a snarl and back again. ‘‘I think it’s very important.’

‘I’ll just be leaving,’ Martin tries to say, taking a few steps back. The thing is moving closer, still. 

‘But where’s the fun in that?’ The thing asks. ‘I thought you enjoyed my company, Martin.’ 

The closer it gets, the paler it looks. The closer it gets, the bigger its eyes. The closer it gets, the sharper the teeth, the wider the mouth. 

‘What did you do to Jon?’ Martin asks. He wills his voice not to shake. Wills himself to stop backing away. ‘The real one.’ 

The thing shakes his head, clearly disappointed. ‘Jon this, Jon that,’ it says. ‘Is that all you ever think about?’ As Martin watches, the thing winks at him, and then opens his mouth and says, in a new voice: ‘Martin.’

Martin knows that voice. He does. 

‘So that’s what you want,’ the thing says, its voice unfamiliar again. ‘Well, I’m so sorry, Martin. That’s just something you can’t have.’

‘What did you do to him?’ Martin asks again. 

The thing is close to Martin now. Too close. Too large. It looms over him, it’s going to consume him. ‘I took everything that was him,’ the thing says, ‘and ate it’

‘You didn’t,’ Martin says. His voice is steady. He’s not moving away. ‘You couldn’t have.’ 

The thing laughs, a high, shrill sound that bounces across the room. ‘But that’s what I  _ do _ , Martin. That’s all I am. I’m what comes after the meal.’ 

Martin can’t speak. He can just look as the thing stretches its limbs, as its face falls, contorts, disappears and reappears faster than Martin can track it. 

‘Don’t worry, Martin,’ the thing says. It leans closer. It’s everywhere. ‘I have room for you too.’ 

Martin lifts his knife and rams it through its chest. What he thinks is its chest, anyway. It’s difficult to tell by the way it keeps changing. 

The thing makes a noise that might be pain, or laughter, and suddenly there’s room again. Martin doesn’t look back. He doesn’t think. He runs. 

He runs out of the office. He runs through the halls. He hears someone calling his name. 

‘A blade blessed by a watcher,’ he hears the thing yell from somewhere behind him. Close. Too close. ‘That’s clever, Martin, I’ll give you that. But not quite clever enough.’ 

It’s coming closer. Closer and closer still. Martin isn’t even sure where he’s running anymore. 

And then footsteps. Several. 

Sasha yelling his name. And Tim. 

Martin stops running. The thing stops moving too. Martin can’t even see it anymore. He isn’t sure where they are, just that it’s dark, and that somewhere in front of him, is Sasha and Tim. 

They’re the only thing he can see clearly. Tim, with a flashlight, his eyes wide, glare steady. Sasha in front of him, her face contorting in anger. 

‘I can see you,’ she says. Her voice doesn’t sound at all like her own. It sounds like a thousand voices, yelling. It sounds like a storm. ‘I see you now.  _ I see you. _ ’ 

Something is screaming. It isn’t Sasha anymore. It’s something else. Something flailing and falling apart on the floor. Something breaking into a thousand pieces as they watch. 

Then there’s nothing. 

The lights flick on. 

Jon Sims is no more. 

***

Later, Tim will explain that once they woke up and found Martin gone, it wasn’t exactly difficult to guess where he’d gone. 

Sasha will hug him, and whisper that she’s  _ sorry _ , a hundred times over. Martin won’t understand what exactly she has to be sorry for. ‘I forgive you,’ he’ll say anyway. And then whisper that he’s sorry in return. 

Later, they will move away from the hallway and the last spot the thing that was not Jon stood. They’ll walk through the hallways of the institute, shoulders brushing, impossibly tired, impossibly awake.    
  
Martin will look at the polaroid in the greenish glow of the institute lamps and feel more regretful than he knows what to do with. His hands will shake and he’ll let them. 

‘I think he might be gone,’ Sasha will say. Tim will keep a hand at the small of her back and say nothing. 

They remember now. 

‘He’s been gone for such a long time,’ she’ll continue. She’ll sound nothing like the Sasha they’ve come to know since she became head archivist. She’ll sound young, and fragile, and scared. 

They’re all so very scared. 

There will be a hundred new poems inside Martin as they walk out of the Institute. A thousand new thoughts about a person he knew, once. Someone he loved. 

They’ll hug each other. They’ll be too tired to talk about it, the hurt, and so they won’t. 

They’ll go home. 

***

The first thing Martin does when gets home is to push every statement, every single one, from the coffee table and onto the floor. He tears a few of them to pieces, and then immediately feels bad about it. That was someone’s story, he thinks, and grows quiet again. 

  
The second thing he does is to clean up the mess again. 

The third thing he does, is to make a cup of tea and drink it. 

There’s a hollow in his chest. He was expecting the memories of Jon, the real Jon, to fill it, but it didn’t. 

He’s still longing for someone who’s not there, after all. 

_ I took everything he was and ate it.  _

Martin feels as if he might throw up. 

He drinks another cup of tea, and then another. He feels so cold. Almost numb. 

  
Numb might be better. Nothing could have prepared Martin for it, not really. The feeling of losing a friend. 

The feeling of knowing he’ll carry on making his way through the world, all while knowing that there’s a little less good in it. 

Tim and Sasha are safe, he tries to remind himself. And it does help, thinking about them. How they’re hurt, but fine. How they’ll be fine. They’ll be fine. 

There’s a knock on his door. 

Martin doesn’t quite register it at first, and then when he does, his first instinct is to reach for the knife. 

He brought it with him from the institute. He held it in his hand, all the way the home. 

The knock comes again, and again, and again. And then a voice, muffled by the wood, but still there: ‘Martin?’ 

The voice is so familiar. Too familiar, almost. Fake, maybe. All of this could be wrong. 

Martin gets up and goes to open the door, knife in hand. He doesn’t have a peephole to look through, but he does have a knife, and he’s prepared to point it at whatever thing walks through. 

He opens the door. On his doorstep stands Jon Sims. 

Martin blinks, once then twice. There’s something trying to break out of his chest. None of this should be happening, but it is. 

Jon stands there, looking at Martin. He looks… the same. He looks the same. He looks the same, and tired. 

‘I hope you’re not planning on killing me,’ he says, staring at the knife.

‘You’re not really Jon, are you?’ Martin asks. This is the cruelest trick yet, he thinks. The cruelest by far. 

Jon looks down at himself. He flaps his arms around, experimentally, as if making sure they work. 

He looks like an idiot. He looks right. 

‘I think I am,’ Jon says. ‘I’m not sure what happened, but I think I am.’ 

‘It killed you,’ Martin says. Without quite realizing it, he’s lowered his knife. ‘It killed you months ago.’ 

Jon sends him a wry smile. ‘Not quite,’ he says. ‘It trapped me in a table.’ 

‘In a table?’ 

‘Down in the artifact storage.’ Jon grimaces, his glasses slipping farther down his nose. ‘It was... unpleasant.’ 

‘Jesus,’ Martin says. He can’t stop looking at Jon, he realizes. Can’t stop tracing his face, trying to understand. It really is him. ‘Come in,’ Martin says finally. 

Jon does. They sit down at the kitchen table. They watch each other. ‘I didn’t know where else to go,’ Jon says, finally, breaking the silence. 

‘I’ll make some tea,’ Martin says. It’s the only thing he can think of to stop himself from reaching out to touch Jon, just to make sure he’s real. 

‘I knew what was happening,’ Jon begins as Martin is busy with the kettle. Martin freezes, but says nothing. ‘He’d come down and talk to me, sometimes. Keep me updated. Keep me scared.’ 

Martin thinks of the thing, crumbling to pieces underneath Sasha’s stare. More than anything, he hopes it hurt. 

‘I’m sorry we didn’t realize earlier,’ Martin says. He has his back turned to Jon. Isn’t sure if he dares look at him. ‘I’m so sorry.’ 

‘It’s fine,’ Jon says. Martin spins around to face him, ready to protest, and Jon stops him. ‘Or, of course it’s not  _ fine _ . It’s understandable. I can’t believe you even figured it out at all.’ He pauses, looks down at the table. ‘I thought I would die in there, honestly.’ 

‘Well, you didn’t,’ Martin says. His voice is sharper than he means for it do be. He hands Jon his cup of tea. ‘You’re here.’ 

‘Right,’ Jon says. He’s looking at Martin. His eyes are dark, and serious, and for a moment Martin almost feels like laughing. He really does look a bit like a squirrel. 

‘I found this,’ Jon says, after a brief silence. He reaches into what Martin recognizes as the old leather bag he always used to bring to work. Seeing it makes Martin want to laugh again. 

He’s just glad. God, he’s so glad. 

Out from the leather bag, Jon pulls a small, unlabelled folder. ‘It’s statements,’ Jon says. ‘I found it next to the table when I was broken out of it. I read it on the tube on the way here. I think they’re all about the thing that trapped me.’ 

The folder lays between them on the table. They both stare at it. 

‘Do I want to read it?’ Martin asks. 

‘Maybe not right now,’ Jon says. He looks a bit pale. Martin gets the sudden urge to tear the folder into pieces. ‘It’s not exactly pleasant.’ 

‘The thing is dead,’ Martin says. ‘Sasha killed it.’

Jon nods, smiling slightly. ‘Good.’ 

‘I missed you,’ Martin says. He can’t think of any good reason not to say it, anymore.

‘You did?’ Jon asks. He sounds decidedly not like Jon. Not in a creepy, body snatching sort of way. He just sounds younger. Almost hopeful. Or maybe Martin’s just imagining it. 

‘Yeah. I - Of course. Of course I did.’ Martin’s not quite sure what to do with himself. All he knows is that Jon is here, in his kitchen, and he smells faintly of cigarette smoke. And that Martin wants to touch him. 

‘Alright,’ Jon says. And then nothing. But he’s smiling, and it’s him, and someday Martin will find the courage, somewhere, to reach for his hand across the table. 

And maybe that’s enough for now. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this story is actually a love letter to Martin, because I love him. 
> 
> thanks for reading!!

**Author's Note:**

> Title from " The Language of the Birds" by Richard Siken because I'm predictable


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